The best walks in the Lake District for a first visit

Latrigg is the low green fell behind Keswick, and the short way up it from the Gale Road car park is barely a walk at all. Which is the point. The view down the length of Derwentwater to Borrowdale is one of the best in the district for almost no effort, so it's the one to do on the evening you arrive, or the morning the cloud is down on everything higher.

Wainwright asked for his ashes to be scattered here, by Innominate Tarn, and once you've stood there you'll see why. Haystacks is a knobbly little mountain at the head of Buttermere with tarns on its top and crags on every side, and the climb from Gatesgarth by Scarth Gap is a steady hour and a half. It is rougher underfoot than its height suggests. Good boots, not trainers.

Skiddaw is the fourth-highest mountain in England and the easiest of the big ones, because a broad path goes all the way to the top. It's a long, steady pull rather than anything technical, and the summit ridge is exposed to every wind that blows, so pick a clear day. The reward is a view that takes in the whole northern Lake District and, on a good day, Scotland.

Everyone has seen the photograph. Striding Edge is a knife-edge of rock leading to the summit plateau of Helvellyn, and it's the walk people come to the Lakes to do. The scrambling is short and not difficult in good conditions, but the edge is high, narrow and busy, and in wind or ice it becomes a different proposition. Go early, go on a dry day, and come down by Swirral Edge for the full horseshoe.

The classic long day of the eastern fells: a horseshoe of eight summits round the head of Rydal Beck, with Fairfield at the top and the whole thing starting and finishing in Ambleside. Fifteen kilometres and a lot of up and down, on good paths with huge views. If you want to feel like you've done a mountain day without any scrambling, this is it.